How would PiE use $5,500 in Zipcar credit?

Written by PiE Team on Nov 15, 2012

PiE is currently in a contest to win $5,500 worth of Zipcar credits. Some people have been wondering: if we win this competition, how would we use the money?

As you know, PiE is a low-budget, student-run robotics competition based in UC Berkeley for underserved high schools all around the Bay Area. Our goal is for the money to go towards transporting our mentors from Berkeley to the high schools more often than in the past.

We will have about 24 teams this year for our seven week competition. If we get $5,500 from Zipcar, we can afford for our mentors to go their high schools more than twice as often as in the past. In previous years, mentors have either paid out of their own pocket for gas or have taken public transportation (which takes more than twice as long as driving).

If we divide our $5,500 by 24 teams, by 7 weeks, and by 8 dollars/hour, we can afford for our mentors to use 4 hours of Zipcar per week, doubling the amount of time many mentors were able to devote last year.

Twice as much time with mentors in high schools will help all of our participants learn more about science and engineering!